DENTAL DISEASE

Evening Star, Issue 22209, 11 December 1935, Page 3

DENTAL DISEASE

RESEARCH AH URGENCY FACILITIES NEEDED AT SCHOOL Classing investigation into dental disease as among the most urgent problems of the ipresent day, Dr R. Bevan Dodds (Dean of the _ Dental Faculty) stressed the _ necessity for greatly increased facilities for research at the school, in his annual report to the University Council yesterday afternoon. A development during the year had been the setting aside of a small laboratory for research work alone, he reported. This had been equipped by means of a little ingenuity ou the part of members of the staff, enabling the work to be carried but much _ more efficiently and comfortably than in the past. There was no special grant for research work at the school, and all equipment and materials had to be improvised or obtained in the ordinary way from the annual grant. Despite that, Mr Rout had continued with his inquiries into bone infections about the teeth, and shortly would be in a position to publish the result, and Mr Fuller had commenced some very satisfactory and promising work on salivary analysis in. relation to dental disease. “ The matter of dental disease is of such importance to all classes of the community that it is a great, pity that this national school has not more facilities for research,” said Dr Dodds. “As it is, we are dependent on the members of the staff alone to carry it on as best they may at odd times, and though they have done some really good work, it appears that there is an urgent necessity for a complete department, properly endowed, for this work. Continuous effort is essential for research work, and, in the nature of things, that is impossible here, as the young graduates cannot be retained after a short period. It is an extraordinary fact that in this country where dental disease presents a serious national problem, and which affects every member of the community in some measure, there is no organised attempt to investigate and deal with it. I think I am correct in saying that the matter of investigation into dental disease can be classed among the most urgent problems of our time.”